Current state-of-the-art configuration management systems are based on, names of a file, creation dates of files, registries, and environment variable within an application or a suite of applications. However, these relationships are limited in only defining a relationship between components within an application, or a suite of applications.
What is needed is a method of defining change relationships in a manner that extends beyond an application component relationship to include the additional dimension of change and rules for changing configuration items including but not limited to time a change was made, the user making the change, the content of the change, and the impact of a change. Additionally, what is needed is the ability to correlated multiple change management specifications defining different system viewpoints. Further needed is a change control system where the integral relationship, logical groups of system components and configuration items can be specified for which configuration item change information can be utilized for management, control, monitoring, and analysis. What is also is needed is a configuration management system does not define relationships in terms of the configuration change dimensions such as time when a change can be made, the change value, the program that made the change, the user that made the change, the severity of a change and the analysis of a change from multiple viewpoints.